Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Armed And Dangerous Crafty

Look out world -- I got a glue gun on Saturday! My life has forever changed. Dave is trembling in the corner in fear wondering what comes next :) It all started because I need a Spring wreath. Spring must be coming soon (despite what this article says - blah) and our front door needs to be ready. So, inspired by a Michaels ad promoting fake flowers at 50% off, I went shopping. They had crowded a whole bunch of gerberas together for a photo on their e-mail and I was sold.

I had decided that if glue guns were a reasonable price, I would get one. And I found one for $2.99. Whoo hoo!!! I found a bunch of Gerbera daisies, some burlap and a straw wreath. I was good to go.

Here is where I need to insert the disclaimer that a) I am not artistic and b) I am not a perfectionist. My philosophy was ""I'll give it a go and see what happens." This serves me well in some things and not so well in others :)

First of all I pulled all the flower heads off the stems. Then I decided that I might want some greenery in my wreath so I started cutting the leaves off too. After cutting about seven leaves I discovered they also just pulled off. Ha ha ha!!!

Then I got to work with the glue gun. I started gluing the burlap around the wreath. Since it was a straw wreath it was dropping straw everywhere and the burlap helped prevent that. Sadly, I didn't buy enough burlap the first time so I only got about half done.

Showing off my first hot glue burn. Ow! (Note: This past week, Sam brought home this necklace and announced, "I made you a necklace Mommy!" and my heart completely melted. Love!)

After I had hot glued the burlap on, I started adding some greenery. Normally I am not a huge fan of greenery, but I felt like it might add some texture.

And then I started gluing on flowers. Let me just say, that for every step of this project, my new glue gun changed my life. It took me just fifteen minutes to get this much done.

I got this far, until I ran out of burlap and had to make another trip to Michaels.

Once I had acquired more burlap, I finished covering the straw wreath with it. In retrospect I really like how pretty the wreath looks at this point. Maybe next time I do this (see Dave, trembling in the corner!), I will stop at this point :)

However, intrepid crafter that I am, I carried on, adding some more greenery. Until I ran out that is.

I filled the greenery deprived space with a lot of flowers, and then continued adding flowers to the rest of the wreath.

And this is my finished product. I keep telling myself it will look better hanging on our door. It's pretty wild and crazy and bright but I think it's exactly what I need right now!

I think the main problem is that it reminds me a little bit of a funeral wreath. Next time I think I would just cover the wreath in burlap and glue a few flowers on at one spot. And I think I'd get paler colours as well. My excuse is that Rachel was helping me choose flowers and she keep wanting the really bright ones! And quite honestly, after the grey and cold and snow, the bright colours were appealing to me too. At least our house will be easy to find!

Now I'm off to search out more projects on Pinterest where I can use my glue gun. I have a feeling I will have a close relationship with it for the next little while :)

6 comments:

1. BEAUTIFUL WREATH!!! 2. I remember my first wreath-induced hot glue gun burn. Oh the PAIN!!! I'm so sorry you had one too!! 3. You make me want to play on Pinterest. RIGHT NOW. And since I"m home sick from work, I can actually do that!! :)

1) Thank you! 2) It wasn't that bad -- kind of like hot candle wax, but of course I hadn't touched the actual end of the glue gun so that might have been worse. 3) I hope you had fun Pinterest playing!

Awe, I love your first homemade wreath! I agree that you need those brighter colors after the winter you've had. I do actually think it looked lovely with some of the burlap still showing, but you can always do another one like that for later. But I REALLY love that necklace...I was going to ask where you got it so I can get one too. I guess I just need to ask Evan to make me one, huh? ;-)